1. The #Harpersletter on free speech is excellent: carefully worded, thoughtful, important. I would wholly subscribe to it. One point where we should dig deeper, though, is the extent to which this is an inter-generational conflict... (short thread)
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bit.ly/2O7Ybk3
2. In many of these cases, it's a new generation (roughly <30, ie born post-1989) who are driving the outrage. Older liberals like me must stand up for vital importance of free debate & tolerance, as #Harpersletter does, but also listen to understand what's behind this protest...
3. I've been discussing this for some years with my students (@onfreespeech @EuropeanMoments). Many of their concerns(eg deep persistence of racism, UK occluding its colonial past) are valid & vital, if garlanded w hyperbole. (But hey, old '68er, remember yr radical youth.)..
4. Right response is not for what #Harpersletter calls 'institutional leaders' to cave to speech-denying demands at first flurry of social media outrage (this is the letter's key point), but to find *speech-enhancing and debate-enriching* ways these concerns can be addressed…
